This sweater is quick to make because of the chain links. You have the option of cropping the sweater into a shrug if you prefer that. Yarn substitutions are given, which is helpful. This has been a very popular design!
The sleeves are meant to be long, but one reader said her sleeves were too long, so she left off the flare. I have put instructions on my website to make the sleeves shorter (about 3”) if you do not like extra long sleeves. The photo of the girl with the salmon colored pants is 5’ 5” tall and a size xsmall. You can see how long the sleeves are on her. (she can also wear petites) I believe if you use Simply Soft yarn or anything other than the yarn used in the main photo, the sleeves may stretch, so you might want to consider making the sleeves shorter. I was not happy with the yarn I used for the main sweater. The color (variegated) is pretty, but the sweater did not end up soft with that yarn. It was the only project in the book I was not happy with. You can substitute any other # 3 or # 4 yarn, as long as you can get the correct gauge. Using the straight pin method to measure your gauge is of utmost importance in making any garment. Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to help!

Also shown is how you can make this into a cropped sweater, by just leaving off the lower section.